“What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?” asks Alice rhetorically in the opening scene of the children’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. From the moment he first conceived it, author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson—known to readers as Lewis Carroll—knew the magic of Alice’s story lay in the dreamlike interplay between words and pictures. Before it was ever published, Carroll himself produced a handwritten, self-illustrated manuscript that became a template for future editions. Those editions, in turn, inspired works as diverse as Disney’s iconic animated feature, The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, Tim Burton’s lavish live-action film, and even an X-rated musical.
Public Domain
Carroll is well known for his wordplay, giving us words like galumph, burble, and chortle. Even so, in the 150+ years since Alice first appeared, it’s Wonderland’s visual iconography that is perhaps even more embedded in popular culture. Whichever form the story takes, it seems audiences can’t get enough of Alice, the quirky characters she meets, and the whimsical world they inhabit.
In more recent decades, postmodern interrogations of Carroll’s nonsensical creations have become something of a cottage industry. For the vast majority of fans, Alice’s story remains an innocent yarn for children, purely meant to entertain. For many critics and scholars, however, Carroll’s trippy, fantastical world could only be the product of a drug-addled brain. In Alice Ever After, writer-illustrator Dan Panosian deftly mines the conjecture surrounding Carroll’s potential drug use to create a meta-narrative about altered states and addiction. Whether Alice’s creator used and abused opiates or not, Panosian’s protagonist surely does.
BOOM! Studios
In the opening scene, Panosian establishes Alice as a sly, duplicitous schemer, using her charm and good looks to get what she wants. Outwardly, she may play the part of a proper young Victorian lady, but her motives aren’t exactly pure. Nor are her colleagues. After stealing a small silver mirror, Alice swaps it for a half-bottle of pills from her sketchy sidekick Morton. She arrives home late and distraught, decides to forgo dinner, mostly avoids her family, and in no time at all it’s off to Wonderland for the night.
To this point, Panosian and his fellow illustrator Giorgio Spalletta, colorist Fabian Mascolo, and letterer Jeff Eckleberry have played it entirely straight. Their inks are simple and clear. The colors are bright but not garish. And the character designs and settings are done exceptionally well, with a lightly stylized look that is detailed, realistic, and highly accessible.
BOOM! Studios
It’s in Wonderland, however, where the art comes alive, upending our expectations. The backgrounds are a solid, pale institutional green while the characters all look haggard, colored motley shades of gray. Beyond our heroine’s red-gold hair, it’s all desaturated earth tones and the sickly absence of color. The White Rabbit, Mad Hatter and all the rest are clearly suffering the effects of the morning after the night before. Especially if that night had lasted a decade or so, which is apparently how long Alice has been absent.
The stark contrast between Alice’s middle class real life and the seedy, seamy Wonderland she visits thanks to opiates is the strongest, most compelling aspect of the story so far. As a writer, Panosian does a great job of world building. In terms of action and drama, we’re still waiting for things to get started. Similarly missing are Carroll’s verbal gymnastics and his spirit of playfulness. Panosian and his co-creators absolutely do a lot of things right; given the incredible richness of the source material, however, they’ve also left some opportunities out there. Still, this debut sets the stage nicely for the intriguing series to come. If you’re in the mood for a Wonderland that’s equal parts trippy and gritty, this is a series to watch.
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